“Changing Things up” by Mr. Tim Bonesteel

As a project in our math class we were making graphs, specifically circle graphs, so I gave each student a little bag with a various amount of M&M’s in them, and they had to count how many they got and write it on the board, and once all data was collected they had to make a circle graph of how many M&M’s each person got and what percent of the over all total they had. I know they all had a lot of fun with that project, maybe more so eating the candy.

As you can see the classroom looks a bit different, which is answered by asking the question, what happens when you have sleepy students slumping in their chairs and laying their heads down? Get rid of the tables of course! And that is exactly what happened in 6th grade last week. I decided to change my classroom up a bit, I took out all of the tables (except one) and spread the 6th graders out amongst the front part of the classroom. I know the biggest question that people have is, “how do they write if they have now table?” well the answer is simple; clipboards, and some of the students even take their other chair that they have at their desk and bring them over to write on, although there are a few that preferred to sit at a table. It’s been just under a week with this change up and I can already tell the difference in attentiveness and eagerness to learn, and the feedback from the students have been a positive one, they really seem to enjoy the new setup. Not only have I “thrown-out” the tables is that I have been incorporating power-point presentations for each lesson, which has really been a huge turn around in the Math class. I am also using the projector and slides for the 3rd/4th grader’s History class to show them different maps and making learning more fun and interactive, and they are loving it too.